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Here’s what I don’t get about all of the nonsensical whining about “gender issues.”

Most of them aren’t even gender issues. If something is universal and not specific to a certain group, it’s not a specific party issue.

For instance, folks complaining about gals having their hair cut short. WTF!

Certain groups of folks will complain and critique the hairstyles of every other person who isn’t normal…THEIR normal.

I have crazy hair. It’s a faux hawkish wild man hair style. People talk about my hair all of the time. Back when I had long hair and a goatee, I would be walking down the street and random people would yell; “Blonde Jesus!” I laughed. I didn’t whine about it.

When people talk smack, I talk smack back. Most of the time, it’s all in good fun. Occasionally, it’s a boss telling me that I need to conform to which I answer; “You can have me like this or you can fire me.” I’ve never been fired. What can I say, I’m a competent SOB.

Folks commenting, critiquing or, even, criticizing a little girl for having short hair is not a gender issue. It’s a cultural norm issue. Many Americans fear anything outside of the norm. They’re weak minded, Lilliputian fucktards. They’re conformists. They are the bane of existence for all of us who are non-conformist or just plain weird.

To me, weird is beautiful. It’s special. It’s what I desire.

Normal is boring. Normal people are wasted lives. They’re too fearful to take a chance and most of them yearn for the chance to break free. They won’t take that chance though. They are cowards.

Fuck normal. If you want to be normal, be normal. If you want to be weird, be weird. If you are too fearful to be you and to express who you are, you are a coward with a First World Problem. Get over yourself.

This is not a Gender Issue. A Gender Issue is women getting acid thrown in their face because they don’t wear a hijab. The hijab has been defended by “Women’s Rights” activists in the West. Ain’t that ironic.

These are Muslim women who do not understand Islam and the meaning behind the hijab. The hijab is humility and chasteness. There is nothing humble or chaste about most of the women in this video.

The hijab, chadori and other Islamic accoutrement that these women are wearing are nothing more than an expression of their being from an Islamic culture. It is not an understanding of Islam or a representation of their Islamic beliefs.

These women have a choice, obviously, as to how they wish to live their lives. let them go to Saudi Arabia and prance around as they do in this video. That would be an excellent and hard lesson for them in the realities of Islam.

American Muslims are, apparently, no longer Muslims. They’ve lost their “Islam.” lol Muslims in name only. haha

This video is not a vision of reality for Muslim women in the Muslim world. It is an expression of Women who grew up Muslim in the West and, apparently, in extremely liberal Muslim families. This would not be possible in most of the Islamic world.

Body fitting pants and a hijab are as compatible as liberty and slavery. One may as well be a Nun and wear a bikini.

This video says nothing except that Muslim women in America do not to understand Islam or the realities of Muslim women in Muslim countries. The Hijab, the Chadori and other Muslim clothing articles of this type are meant to convey a sense of humility before Allah. They are meant to be a sign that the woman or girl is chaste. These women almost universally wear curve revealing clothing. This completely negates the head coverings that they’re wearing.

I challenge any of them to move to Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Live for a year or two in Egypt or Turkey or many other traditionally Muslim countries outside of the larger Metropolitan areas such as Cairo. Try dressing their as they dress in America. Experiment with going out in public without their hair covered. After that, then come back and tell us how free you felt to dress as you please.

Muslim women outside of the Muslim world have fooled themselves into believing that they have choices. They have fooled themselves into believing that if they wear the hijab that they are good Muslims.

Reality would beat these girls and throw acid in their face almost anywhere outside of the West.

Enjoy those freedoms but understand that you have those freedoms because you DO NOT live in a Muslim society.

Ray and I were sitting in the City Center Cafe when an attractive young woman sat down at the table next to us. This was usually a sign that she was interested in talking to us. It happened a few times before that women would sit near us and wait for an invitation to join our table. The problem with this was that it nearly always caused an uproar. Afghan men did not like “their women” talking to “the damn Americans.”
We were careful. Ray and I furtively searched the cafe for intrusive or fundamentalist looking characters. Long hair and full beards were usually sure signs of a fundy freak but sometimes the young guys would stare at us. It seemed sometimes that they were waiting for some pretense to raise a scene. Seeing no one especially alarming, Ray invited the young girl over to our table. I didn’t really pay her too much attention. She and Ray spoke for a while until she rose and bid us good day. As she departed, she sat a piece of paper in front of Ray, smiled and walked off.

A few days later, the young girl met us at the roof top cafe of our hotel. Amazingly, she was unescorted. We drank tea as she related her story to us.
“My Mother and Father are selling me to an old man. I do not want to go. I’m educated. I graduated last year from one of the best schools in Switzerland. Now, I’m going to be sold to this old man because my parents need money.”
“Well, run away. Leave. Can’t you find a way to get back to Switzerland?” Ray asked.
I just stared on incredulously. It’s not that I’d not heard this story before or that I was surprised but it’s not something to which one grows accustomed. Parents sell their daughters all the time in Afghanistan. Still, the injustice of this girls plight angered me.
“To run would bring dishonor to my family. Besides there is nowhere that I could hide and running would be dangerous. I’d either be thrown in a dirty prison or killed.” She answered Ray.
I sipped my tea.
She continued; “I was raised to be obedient. Still, I never thought that I’d be sold like this to an old man. I allowed myself to believe that I could have a normal life like my friends in Switzerland.”
Ray stared at her. He looked upset.
“Do not worry Ray. There is nothing that you could do. If you involved yourself, it would be trouble. Dangerous for you.”
I had heard similar stories while in Afghanistan. However, I’d never met the story in flesh and blood. This girl was beautiful. Even wrapped up in her hijab (scarf) and dressed in the drab black so common to Afghan women, she was stunning. She was cultured, educated, sophisticated. None of that mattered.
“Ray, this man is a fundamentalist. I will spend the rest of my life in a closet. I will be expected to give him boys. Once I have a baby, I will be hidden away in the dark for the rest of my life to protect his honor. No one will see me. I will have no friends. I will be comfortable but useless. This is not life.
I contemplated killing myself but I do not have the strength of those girls. I can only pray that this old man dies before he can consummate the bargain that my parents have made.”
This is one of the more maddening aspects of Afghanistan. American politicians such as Laura Bush are constantly yammering away at the improvement in the lives of Afghan women. I’ve not seen it. There was an improvement in the lives of women in the three to six months immediately following the “liberation” of Afghanistan. However, the moment that Sharia was enshrined in the Afghan Constitution the curtain fell on women’s rights in the land of the Pushtoon and Tajiks. Women’s rights are now a pipe dream in Afghanistan.

On 11 September 2001, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center came tumbling down in an immense cloud of smoke. Osama bin Laden hiding in his base camp in the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan had planned one of the most audacious attacks in American history. Two commercial aircraft flew into the World Trade Center buildings, one flew into the Pentagon and, finally, a final hi-jacked commercial airliner went down in a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers onboard regained control of their 747 from the Arab terrorists.

A few months later, American CIA and US Army Special Forces, on the orders of George W. Bush, invaded Afghanistan. The US CIA and Special Forces teams linked up with Rashid Doostum and other commanders of the Northern Alliance. They used US Military technology to bombard the Taliban and their mercenary Pushtoon allies back to Southern Afghanistan finally defeating the Taliban in Qandahar.

The invasion of Afghanistan was a “good war.” We were making the world safe for democracy. We were bringing humanity, women’s right and freedom to the people of Afghanistan. We were liberators. This was no war on Islam or the religious principles or culture of Afghanistan and it’s people. America was leading the world in the fight against a new darkness. The old propaganda was pulled out of the dust bins of history. Communism and fascism were replaced by Islamic extremism. This was a Global War on Terror. It was a war that Don Rumsfield and Dick Cheney said might last forever. It was an endless war that would bring light and democracy to the dark, unwashed masses of the Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

What most of the US Public weren’t told was that many of the Pushtoon commanders who fought with the Taliban up to 2001 were bribed into switching sides. Afghan Warlords have always been quick to abandon a losing cause. During the Mujahideen Wars that followed the 1988 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Warlords such as Birhanuddin Rabbani, Rashid Doostum and Hektmetyar Gulbuddin switched sides so often that American Intelligence officials following the war could not keep up with who was on whose side. After being targeted by massive bombing runs by US Military Aircraft guided by US Special Forces soldiers, the North fell swiftly. These Warlords were not willing to fight against aircraft from which they had no defenses. With the writing on the wall, Warlords who had jumped to the Taliban cause a few years earlier accepted massive bribes to join the Coalition cause.

These were the same Warlords who believed in the message of the Taliban. The burqa, sharia, harsh punishments for petty crimes, honor killings, tribalism were the calling cards of these men. These men were no different than Mullah Omar who founded the Taliban movement. Later, Barack Obama would re-define these men as “moderate Taliban.” The only difference between these Warlords and the minions of Mullah Omar were a willingness to take million dollar bribes and to smile at Western cameras. These same men fought alongside the Taliban in the dark of night while treating with us in the light of day.

The plan that got us into bed with these Warlords was initially designated Operation Infinite Justice. The “Muslim street” was outraged again. Infinite justice could only be provided by Allah. The idea of the West providing infinite justice in the Muslim world was another manifestation of the crusader ethos that so offended the Muslim mind. Infinite justice was only possible with Allah. George Bush, whose crusader remarks earlier in the year had caused protests throughout the Muslim World, caved to Muslim sentiment. Ironically, the crusades were a reaction to Islamic Imperialism brought on by the original caliphates wars of conquest against the West. Now, Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda were fighting to bring about a New Caliphate resulting in a similar military backlash from the West. Revisionist history and political correctness resulted in the invasion of Afghanistan being re-designated Operation Enduring Freedom.

Enduring Freedom was an immediate tactical success. US and Coalition forces rolled up the taliban within a few months. However, it’s strategic success was short lived. President Bush, fearing American reaction to flag draped caskets on the evening news, tried to outsource the war to the Afghans and failed to provide covering forces to block the escape of al Qaeda and Taliban leadership. Bin Laden and Mullah Omar trotted out of Afghanistan and into mountains of Pakistan on horseback with the aid of the Musharraf’s Inter Services Intelligence. Rumors at the time had bin Laden slipping into the wild and unruly autonomous Northwest Frontier Province minutes ahead of US Special Forces. The border problem was compounded by the fact that many of the Taliban were Pakistani soldiers in mufti. The Pakistan Army refused to fire on fleeing taliban soldiers and leadership. The Paki Mullah Generals had beefed up Taliban forces in the years before 9-11 with it’s own soldiers. Pakistani soldiers feared firing on fleeing Taliban as they may well have been killing brothers or cousins. Apparently, the only person in the world who didn’t know this was George Bush.

By the time I arrived in Bagram in November of 2003, the Taliban had been defeated and were fighting a low level insurgency that would wax and wane over the next decade. American and World resolve to see through the mission of building democracy was lukewarm despite the glorious rhetoric of the Bush administration. Democracy, women’s rights and equality for ethnic and religious minorities would never get off the ground. By November of 2003, Islamic Law (aka Sharia) would be enshrined into Afghan constitutional law. The Women and Minorities of Afghanistan became victims of the great American military tradition of BOHICA — bend over here it comes again.

George and Laura Bush talked a good game concerning Human Rights. Barack and Michelle Obama gave equal lip service to these ideas. As soon as Sharia was voted into the Afghan Constitution, women and minority rights became a lost cause. In the end, we traded lofty goals and humanity for support from the same warlords who had only months earlier fought with the Taliban. Operation Enduring Freedom would ultimately become Operation Epic Failure.

The French legislators who seek to repudiate the wearing of the veil or the burqa—whether the garment covers “only” the face or the entire female body—are often described as seeking to impose a “ban.” To the contrary, they are attempting to lift a ban: a ban on the right of women to choose their own dress, a ban on the right of women to disagree with male and clerical authority, and a ban on the right of all citizens to look one another in the face. The proposed law is in the best traditions of the French republic, which declares all citizens equal before the law and—no less important—equal in the face of one another.

A great problem in Central Asia and India, among other places, is the selling of women into slaver. Usually sex slavery. Happens quite frequently in Iran as well from what I’ve read.

Women in this part of the world are seen as property. A daughter or a “disobedient” wife can bring a family out of debt or help a family purchase a tractor or other items which can enhance a Father or Husbands wealth or standing in the community. Daughters are not seen as contributors to a family estate. They’re more a nuisance or a drain on resources. A man who has only daughters can be taken deep into debt for dowries.

It’s not seen as fortunate on this side of the planet to have a daughter.

They’re expendable or worse.

We, in the West, find this attitude abhorrent. At the top of the world, it’s merely a fact of life.

There are several excellent books which touch on this subject. Sold, by Patricia McCormick, is an excellent fictional account of a young girl who is sold into slavery in order to bring her family out of debt and deceived into thinking that she will be a house servant in order that she go willingly.

This is a horrible fact of life for women in this part of the globe. A less mentioned facet of the sex slave trade is the number of these women who end up in the West in back alley rooms and decrepit hotels on the wrong side of town. They’re kept prisoner and when used up, murdered and tossed out like so much waste.

After being kidnapped at the age of 16 by a group of thugs and enduring a year of rapes and beatings, Assiya Rafiq was delivered to the police and thought her problems were over.

Then, she said, four police officers took turns raping her.

The next step for Assiya was obvious: She should commit suicide. That’s the customary escape in rural Pakistan for a raped woman, as the only way to cleanse the disgrace to her entire family.

Instead, Assiya summoned the unimaginable courage to go public and fight back. She is seeking to prosecute both her kidnappers and the police, despite threats against her and her younger sisters. This is a kid who left me awed and biting my lip; this isn’t a tale of victimization but of valor, empowerment and uncommon heroism.

“I decided to prosecute because I don’t want the same thing to happen to anybody else,” she said firmly.

Assiya’s case offers a window into the quotidian corruption and injustice endured by impoverished Pakistanis — leading some to turn to militant Islam.

“When I treat a rape victim, I always advise her not to go to the police,” said Dr. Shershah Syed, the president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Pakistan. “Because if she does, the police might just rape her again.”

Yet Assiya is also a sign that change is coming. She says she was inspired by Mukhtar Mai, a young woman from this remote village of Meerwala who was gang raped in 2002 on the orders of a village council. Mukhtar prosecuted her attackers and used the compensation money to start a school.

Mukhtar is my hero. Many Times readers who followed her story in past columns of mine have sent her donations through a fund at Mercy Corps, at www.mercycorps.org, and Mukhtar has used the money to open schools, a legal aid program, an ambulance service, a women’s shelter, a telephone hotline — and to help Assiya fight her legal case.

The United States has stood aloof from the ubiquitous injustices in Pakistan, and that’s one reason for cynicism about America here. I’m hoping the Obama administration will make clear that Americans stand shoulder to shoulder with heroines like Mukhtar and Assiya, and with an emerging civil society struggling for law and social justice.

Europe’s Hedging on Inmates Clouds Guantanamo Plans
(New York Times, March 16, 2009, Pg. 1)
European countries that have offered to help the Obama administration close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay have begun raising questions about the security risks and requirements if they accept prisoners described by the Bush administration as “the worst of the worst,” according to diplomats and other officials. The concerns, and a deep suspicion of whether the American intelligence community will share full information on the prisoners, are likely to complicate the resettlement effort, which is critical to President Barack Obama’s fulfilling his pledge to close Guantanamo within a year of his taking office.
EU Could Aid U.S. by Taking 60 Detainees
(Financial Times, March 16, 2009)
Up to 60 Guantanamo Bay detainees could be taken in by European Union countries, according to the bloc’s senior justice official. Jacques Barrot, the vice-president of the EU, said Europe’s response to any U.S. request that it take former detainees would be a “test issue” ahead of a trip he is making to Washington this week. “We are open to co-operation to help close Guantanamo as long, of course, as the methods used there are not replicated in other places,” he said, adding that Washington would need to give the EU complete information on the background of the detainees sent to Europe.

U.S. Challenged on Sealing of Detainee Files
(Washington Post, March 16, 2009, Pg. 15)
The Justice Department has filed “unclassified” records in federal court outlining the government’s cases against more than 100 detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, but the records are not being made public. The move has triggered a legal skirmish with detainees’ attorneys, who say the excessive secrecy greatly complicates their work, especially in light of looming hearings. Three news organizations have also joined the fight, saying the government is keeping valuable information from the public. The government says it wants to keep the records from public view for now as a national security precaution after it discovered classified information in the documents.